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Songbringer claims to be inspired by the Zelda games and procedural generation. If you don’t know anything about procedural generation, it’s just a way for games to generate content in a somewhat random manner. For Songbringer, the procedural generation is done is by way of a six-letter word that you input at the beginning of the game. That word then generates a world filled with enemies and dungeons. It’s almost like a new experience every time…if you pick a different word every new game.

The best part about the six-letter-word seed system is that the generated world for a certain word (try “Wizard”) will always generate that same world. Thus, it creates that perfect balance of consistency and randomness. Generating the same world is perfect for those who want to complete a speedrun of the game (which unlocks an trophy/achievement), since it will allow you to learn that certain world’s intricacies. You can also opt for a complete rogue-like experience of Songbringer by coupling a different seed word with the permadeath option (i.e., when you die, you don’t get a do-over).

Interestingly, the story of Songbringer is very reminiscent to Zelda games. You take on the role of Roq, a hedonistic spaceman whose ship crashes to the world of Ekzerra. His crash site is near a cave, which contains a humming sword that ropes him in. As Roq picks up the sword, he begins his journey in unraveling some of the dark secrets Ekzerra holds. Those secrets are held in the dungeons Roq will go through in order to fix his ship.

Roq is accompanied by a skybot named Jib. One of the games cool gameplay aspect is having Jib as a support character. Jib can hover over dispatched enemies to search for loot, and after some upgrades, Jib can attack some of the enemies too. Songbringer actually allows a local multiplayer option for a friend (or stranger) to join in on the fun and control Jib. Unfortunately, the disappointing this is also controlling Jib; it’s not as fun as controlling another Roq, since Roq is given more actions and weapons to play with.

Another interesting aspect of Songbringer are the items Roq acquires throughout his journey. Besides the nanosword (what the humming sword in the cave is called), Roq gains weapons that are also similar to Zelda games such as a top hat that works like a boomerang and matter bombs that can destroy cracked walls. One awesome gameplay aspect is that Roq can visit the Droidsmith and combine his weapons and items. By combining, you are able to enhance items such as a teleportation orb to freeze or set enemies ablaze.

The item combination is definitely key to making Roq’s journey easy in Songbringer. Slinging a top hat that freezes enemies that bob up and down the water definitely makes them easier to attack. One annoyance that I’ve seen happen a few times though is that the enemies get pushed to a spot where it is covered by a tree or a rock, and it gets hard to figure out where they are hiding. It’s especially problematic for enemies that hit Roq by touch.

However, that’s easy to overlook with Songbringer having some great gameplay elements up its sleeve. Taking some great references from Zelda games has really paid off. In addition, elevating the game to modern standards with the option of playing it as a rogue-like and combining weapons and items gives the game extra points. If you are looking for a good adventure game, then you should think about picking up Songbringer.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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The new game modes consist of a similarly titled PvE mode, Resistance, and a PvP mode called Skirmish. In the Resistance mode, the different enemy factions of the game team up against the division agents coming at a team of up to 4 agents in a varied wave, similar to a standard horde mode. In Skirmish two teams of 4 agents compete against each other to see which team can get the highest number of kills before a timer expires. These modes may seem pretty basic, but keep in mind that they are completely free to the player and bolster a lot of the replayability of the game.

The new area added in the Resistance update, the West Side Pier, is spread across 2 zones and accessible to all players. In the West Side Pier, enemies from other zones are joining forces and it is the Division agents’ duty to put a stop to that, thus the new game modes. The West Side Pier also contains a new social hub called Camp Clinton where agents can coordinate their teams before taking the fight to the new super group of enemies.

Along with the straight up new content, Resistance will be adding some improvements to past DLC and the base game. This includes a revamp of rogue mechanics and some improvements to the Underground DLC. One of the more interesting of these updates is an improvement on the gear system, which will now let players improve stats of their favorite equipment instead of being forced to replace it. For more detailed info, you can tune in to the official Twitch livestream for The Division here on 5PM CEST on August 31st.

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A campaign in Aztez can be completed in just under/over 15 turns, according to the inbuilt guide. Each turn in Aztez follows the same pattern, although each campaign can vary wildly. First, you are dropped onto the map which covers many locations in the Aztec Empire, including the capital and nerve center of your operations – Tenochtitlan. You start with a predetermined number of cities in your Empire, and the rest of the cities are neutral. During the strategy stage (on the map), events pop up around the map which can net you resources (money), cards (items or single-use services) or extra Atzez. Aztez are the warriors you use in the battle stage. You start out with one and can collect more by completing events.

One of the “game over” requirements is running out of Aztez, so you have to be careful about picking up battle-based events that are too hard. When you hover over an event, it shows the conditions for victory (e.g. defeating all foes in 3 minutes), the consequences for losing (e.g. Aztez dies, lose X resources), and for every event there is a bonus condition that you can meet (e.g. sacrifice two foes during battle) to net extra items or resources. This screen also shows how many of each enemy type will be present during the battle, which is vital if you want to stay alive and avoid really difficult to deal with enemies. On this screen you can also access your Aztez’s loadout, which includes cosmetic changes, the kind of god you can summon in battle, and obvious things like weapons and armor.

Events which lead to battle will, after you have finished tinkering with your loadout, take your Aztez to a side-scrolling hacky-slashy section in an area modeled after places from the Aztec Empire. On the controller you have two attack buttons whose type of hit (i.e. flinging the enemy in the air or crushing them in the ground) can change based on the direction you hold the analog stick. You can also block and grab enemies. While the enemy still has a decent amount of health, grabbing them will give you the option of kneeing them in the gut until they fall back. However, when most enemies are on low enough health, they sway in place and are surrounded by a red light. You can then grab them and sacrifice them to the gods, resulting in a gigantic spray of blood.

All attacks result in bright red blood flying across the screen (which looks great on the otherwise greyscale battlefield), which you can absorb by holding down a button. You are left vulnerable when doing this, but absorbing blood both slowly refills your health and fills your blood meter. When your blood meter is full, you can use the same button to summon whatever god you’ve unlocked and picked in the loadout screen, which appears to deal a hardcore attack to multiple foes.

If you die in combat and have no more Aztez, it’s a game over. If you have other Aztez available or that have already been successful during their missions, you will continue the campaign with one less Aztez to use on your next turn. Once you have exhausted (but not killed) all of your Aztez in a turn, you can go about using your resources or items. Resources can be used to buy one of four services – for example, a General can be placed in a city to prevent dissent. Each time you use a service, its resource cost increases for the next time you use it. You can also receive cards featuring items during your turn which have different effects. One item will remove all current events on the map and replace them with new ones. Another acts as a single use version of one of the services and doesn’t cost any resources to use.

You have to budget your Aztez, your resources and your items carefully while taking the current climate of the Empire into account. After one or two turns, neutral cities on the outskirts of the Valley of Mexico start to be overtaken by dissent. As turns go on, dissent can spread to adjoining cities. You can deal with dissent by paying for one of the services to neutralize, convert, or prevent dissent from spreading. There also events which can show up letting you take over neutral cities and neutralize dissenting cities – typically the latter will require a battle segment against the rebelling citizens. If dissent reaches your capital city, it’s game over.

As the turns go on, it becomes really hard to keep the resources and dissent in check while dealing with the increasingly difficult enemy mobs. You can strategize by taking on festival events which allow the player to reap massive resource rewards, or take on training to acquire new gods to summon and weapons to use. Unlocking new weapons makes them available for your initial weapon selection at the start of the game, which gives you many different ways to play. Once you’ve played a few times you’ll get towards the end of the campaign, where an interesting and terrifying event (complete with new, high stakes music) will begin. Despite about five or six runs at the campaign, I only reached this point once. The first few times I was just feeling the game out and getting a handle on all of the aspects of the strategy and how to deal with different enemy types. After that, I really focused hard on my strategy and still only made it to turn 10 or 11.

This may not be true for everyone, but for me, Aztez was hard. That said, it’s not an insurmountable difficulty. I think if I really worked at my strategy, I could definitely get to whatever the end of the game holds. Part of the difficulty comes from battling with the enemy types and the strategy element at first. After a few tries you start to understand what’s really, really important for success – e.g. having more than one Aztez to deploy. Aztez does offer a training and advanced training session at the start of your first campaign, which you can also access from the main menu, but dealing with different styles of enemies requires concentration and practice, something you don’t usually expect to do too much of in a hacky-slashy game.

Aztez is fun, albeit somewhat difficult, but you won’t find yourself banging your head against a wall out of frustration. Aztez doesn’t make you rip your hair out from battling with the controls, but it could stand to give you maybe a tiny bit more instruction on the battle side of things. The strategy side is trial-and-error and provides a healthy but not frustrating level of challenge. Aztez is also legitimately fun to play, as you would expect of a game where you send sprays of blood everywhere during battle.

The impact you have on the enemies when you send them flying or come up against a block feels real and powerful, as you would expect from a battle between two hardened warriors. The gods you can summon feel truly massive, and absorbing blood from the battlefield is so, so satisfying. The battle arenas, the map, and the carefully chosen pockets of color in the blood and the event markers are just gorgeous, and the Aztec design isn’t one you see a lot of, so it’s really refreshing to look at as well. The music is absolutely perfect and doesn’t wear after the 10th or 20th battle or strategy section.

I’ve read around the internet that Aztez is slated for release on PS4, Xbox One and Vita in the future. I think that the game would work on any of these consoles, but the Vita would be the most enjoyable. A game like Aztez, being like Civilization but with less of a hardcore time investment, would really thrive on a portable like the Vita. I’ve enjoyed the game so much that I plan to pick it up on the Vita when it is eventually made available, and I’m not usually a fan of strategy-heavy games. Whether you’re a fan of strategy, of hack-and-slash games, or neither, I implore you to give Aztez a go on PC. It’s good, unclean fun. Oh god, so much blood. Blood everywhere.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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Morrowind, like you’ve never seen it before. Courtesy of Ornitocopter.

A heated debate is currently raging on this very topic. Several months ago now, Bethesda announced and unveiled the Creation Club, a forum and community designed to provide official paid content – like the loot crates that are so common nowadays – for their most recent titles, TES V: Skyrim and Fallout 4. Offering content created and curated by both Bethesda developers and the best of the modding community, the Creation Club is very clearly an effort to enforce some form of currency exchange in an otherwise prolific, free-to-use modding scene.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that cages have been rattled.

I am telling you all of this because the Creation Club has officially launched, and as a result some of the early offerings are available to browse. I’m going to come clean: as a huge fan of both the Elder Scrolls series and the Fallout games, this sort of stuff did give me tiny fanboy goosebumps. The new content covers everything from armour to weapons to characters to foliage to gameplay, and seems to be keen to incorporate returnees from previous Fallout titles; the Chinese Stealth Armour and Hellfire Power Armour, for example, will be familiar to anyone who has spent a bit of time in the Capitol Wasteland. We’ve then got the Power Horse Armour – comprised of Giddyup Buttercup parts, mostly – as well as a replica of the spacesuit from Arkane Studios’ recent outing, Prey.

There’s also currently a home-made shotgun, a prototype pre-war Gauss Rifle from Fallout 3, and even a military rucksack that increases carry weight and provides other perks as it is customised. Throw in new paint jobs for certain power armour sets and your pip-boy, and you get the general idea: this is the CS:GO loot case shop of Bethesda RPGs. To purchase these new additions to the base game, you’ll need Creation Club credits, which can be purchased for real money like any other micro-transaction currency; once purchased, some of the above items will require that you complete a quest in order to access them (which is a decent idea, particularly for those of us who have 100%-ed the game), whilst others will simply drop into your inventory.

Bethesda are currently offering 100 credits for those who log in to the Creation Club store on console or PC, just to sweeten the deal (marginally, mind you: 100 credits won’t get you that Hellfire armour). Oh, and for the record: the modders who have successfully applied to become Creators are paid for their efforts, which I happen to think is pretty cool. If you’re interested/concerned/outraged, check out the official webpage for more information and the E3 announcement trailer.

Bethesda’s Creation Club is scheduled for release on PS4 and Xbox One in the near future, and is currently available on PC as an update for Fallout 4 only.

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The Escapists 2 is the successor to the award winning sandbox prison-escape game. Escaping will, of course, be something much easier said than done. You’ll have to work around a strict prison schedule if you want to avoid the unwanted attention of the guards. This time you’ll find yourself crafting weapons and tools found, or of course, stolen from within the prison. You’ll need to watch yourself though, a cell shakedown could easily mean the undoing of all your hard work.

The game has many new features for Escapists fans to explore and enjoy. Among these are a series of new items to craft, including a taser, an item that is a must for those times when you absolutely have to make a guard unconscious. A new combat system has also been implemented featuring new lock-on targeting and the ability to make light and heavy attacks. In addition to this the game is offering a more rounded experience by giving you new ways to make your prison life less miserable. You can join a band, learn to paint, and much more.

On a more technical note, the game is offering drop in/drop out play and will support both split-screen and online multiplayer for up to four people. The Escapists 2 offers co-operative and versus play so if that’s your thing there will be plenty to do with your mates.

Fans of the first game in the series will probably be very pleased to see that their experience has been given a spit and polish and made bigger and better to boot. New comers to this franchise will be able to look on what is already a rather acclaimed series with fresh eyes and hopefully get a lot of enjoyment out of something that has been enhanced for them. Either way if you’ve got the itch for a bout of breaking out The Escapists 2 will be in stores for your relevant device now.

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Undertale originally came out for the PCs a couple of years ago. Created by a one-man developer, Toby Fox, the game became a hit and garnered high scores from review sites for being very unique. The combat system of nonviolently defeating enemies, while not a farfetched idea and probably have done before (where you escape or flee enemy encounters), was given a cool twist in the game.

In Undertale, when you encounter an enemy, you have the option to fight or act. Choosing to fight will bring up a mini-game, where you must hit the center with a slider that goes back and forth. The damage you do depends on how close you are at the center. Choosing to act, however, brings up another subset of commands that is different from each enemy or boss. These actions is what will lead you to spare an enemy.

Sparing an enemy or boss for a pacifist run of the game is where that little challenge I was talking about earlier comes in. Allowing mercy isn’t so cut-and-dry like fighting; there’s a little bit of experimentation and dodging to do. You can do certain actions for each type of enemy or boss, but there’s always one (or two) action that, if done, will allow you to spare an enemy. It takes a little bit of observation, by the way. One enemy might outright say what it wants in order for him to be spared, but others will show it to you.

Then there’s the dodging aspect of sparing. When you do an action to an enemy, the enemy will fight back by attacking you. It launches a mini-game where you have to dodge the enemy’s projectiles, which can be quite interesting. There are times when you’re dodging missiles, fireballs, cats, and sometimes you’re not even dodging projectiles, but rather shooting them back to the enemy. Clearly, following a pacifist run is the more entertaining of the options to either fight or spare.

Story-wise, Undertale is a trip. You wake up to a world where monsters and humans inhabit the world, and you have the urge to go back to your home. The journey home takes you to a very amusing, sometimes outright silly path of quirky characters and dialogue. There is humor littered all over the place from the banters to the boss battles. I guarantee you’ll find something amusing in the first few minutes you play the game.

One of the game’s awesome features is that there are multiple endings based on whether you took the path of violence, the path of mercy, or somewhere between the two. In fact, more gameplay is also unlocked when you, of course, take the harder route of sparing every single enemy and boss. Just remember though, the extra gameplay means harder bosses, so hopefully you’re an expert in bullet hell.

By the way, purchasing the PS4 version of Undertale gives you a copy of it for the Vita. The game is perfect for on-the-go gamers, since the game is quite easy and can be finished in six hours. It also has some replay value with its multiple endings and different ways to defeat enemies. It’s also good for a laugh as well.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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